Midwife chief in termination storm stands by bid to scrap 24-week limit
THE boss of the midwives’ union refused to quit last night – despite admitting she had no idea how many members backed her drive to scrap abortion limits.
Cathy Warwick sparked a mutiny by signing up midwives, without asking them, to a campaign to axe the 24-week restriction.
But she has vowed to continue as chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives.
Professor Warwick insisted it ‘wasn’t a necessity’ for her to ask the board of the RCM or its members before joining the campaign – which would allow women to have a baby aborted legally any time up to birth.
Critics have accused her of a blatant conflict of interest because of her other role.
As well as leading Britain’s 30,000 midwives, she is chairman of the leading abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which is paid £25million a year by the NHS to conduct abortions.
Professor Warwick signed the RCM union up to BPAS’s campaign to ‘decriminalise’ abortion by scrapping the 24-week legal cut-off. The RCM’s board – made up of nine senior midwives supposedly in charge of the union’s strategy – was not balloted over the plan which has horrified many of its members.
Yesterday, none of the board members wanted to discuss the crisis, all being either ‘unavailable’ or offering no comment.
But a source close to one of them said that, although she did back the policy, it had come as a surprise. The source added: ‘There was no vote on the subject. She did not even realise it was policy until she read about the furore.’
Hundreds of midwives and around 15,000 others have signed a ‘Not in our name’ petition accusing Professor Warwick of a ‘betrayal’ of the profession.
Sharon Hayes, 57, a Lancashire midwife of 33 years, said: ‘I’m not against abortion… it’s a woman’s right to have that choice, but I think the 24-week cut-off is right and proper. Cathy Warwick has endorsed something the vast majority of her members would not support. She should have asked us first.’
Last night, Professor Warwick conceded some midwives had asked questions, but admitted she did not know how many members backed the policy.
‘We’ve not got numbers,’ she said. ‘But the board supported the policy and we’ve had a lot of members saying that it’s a very good position to have taken.
‘We’ve had a handful of members who’ve come back with questions to which I’ve responded to, and as far as I know they are content.’
The 63-year-old insisted the policy was ‘in line with our strategic objectives’.
Paul Tully of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said the union had ‘politicised the role of midwives’.
He added: ‘If the RCM didn’t even ask its board to vote…it is an appalling indictment of the organisation and shows an ideological prejudice in favour of abortion.
‘Midwifery is a caring profession … Abortion is a total contradiction of that.’